Fractal analysis of visual search activity for mass detection during mammographic screening.

PURPOSE

The objective of this study was to assess the complexity of human visual search activity during mammographic screening using fractal analysis and to investigate its relationship with case and reader characteristics.

METHODS

The study was performed for the task of mammographic screening with simultaneous viewing of four coordinated breast views as typically done in clinical practice. Eye-tracking data and diagnostic decisions collected for 100 mammographic cases (25 normal, 25 benign, 50 malignant) from 10 readers (three board certified radiologists and seven Radiology residents), formed the corpus for this study. The fractal dimension of the readers' visual scanning pattern was computed with the Minkowski-Bouligand box-counting method and used as a measure of gaze complexity. Individual factor and group-based interaction ANOVA analysis was performed to study the association between fractal dimension, case pathology, breast density, and reader experience level. The consistency of the observed trends depending on gaze data representation was also examined.

RESULTS

Case pathology, breast density, reader experience level, and individual reader differences are all independent predictors of the complexity of visual scanning pattern when screening for breast cancer. No higher order effects were found to be significant.

CONCLUSIONS

Fractal characterization of visual search behavior during mammographic screening is dependent on case properties and image reader characteristics.